###################################################

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE

Vinyl’s Revenge # 24 (3 Jan 2017)

Project 366 Listener Guide #78

“Tchaikovsky Suites nos. 3 and 4”

In the early summer of 1884 Tchaikovsky had already achieved much, and yet, in his habitual manner, he was again questioning his own powers as a composer, fearing that he had nothing left to say. Entries in his diary in May express these anxieties, as he struggled with the composition of the third of his orchestral suites. In fact the work, particularly in its final set of variations, was to prove one of his most effective. Tchaikovsky had first entertained the idea of writing a suite based on pieces by Mozart in 1884. The impetus for putting the project into practice came with the imminence of the centenary of the first performance of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. The completed suite was first performed at a Russian Music Society concert in Moscow on 26th November.